Summer Sins: Bedded, or Wedded? / Willingly Bedded, Forcibly Wedded / The Mediterranean Billionaire's Blackmail Bargain

But the man who was now coolly picking up his cards got to her all right—slamming into her with a reality that had a physical impact on her. Got to her in the same way as being run over by a bus got to you. Knocking every breath of air out of your lungs so that all you could do was swallow and gaze helplessly.

Except that gazing was the one thing she knew, with every last shred of effort, she must not do. Yet the urge to do so was overwhelming. His physical presence at her side was overwhelming. When he had walked up to her on the dance floor and disengaged her from her partner, with a single line in a continental accent that had curled inside her, it had been overwhelming, and when he had slid his hands around her waist and drawn her towards him she had completely frozen. Yet her heart had been thumping like a trip hammer, her whole body as tense as a board with awareness of the man.

As her fingers tightened now on the ornamental arms of the chair she felt a wave of reaction go through her. This was all wrong. Wrong and horrible, and … Well, just wrong and horrible. Because to have a man like that—who just took your breath away—paying attention to you, any attention at all, in a place like this, when you looked like a cheap trashy tart, was just excruciating. She wanted to run, bolt, hide with mortification.

With a sharp, painful inhalation of breath she forced some composure into herself. What the hell had she to be mortified about? OK, so the guy was as out of place here as a diamond on a rhinestone necklace. But he was here, wasn’t he? So that meant that, however fancy he was, he was still just a punter. So what the hell did it matter that he was the most incredible-looking male she’d ever set eyes on outside a movie?

And anyway … Another harsh truth hit her squarely in the face. She’d been so preoccupied trying to come to grips with the impact the man had on her that she was only now registering it.

Whatever the reason he’d swapped Tanya for her, it was not because he wanted to eye her up. There had been nothing in his expression to indicate that he found her attractive.

Her mouth tightened momentarily. Good God, how on earth should a man who looked like he did find a woman who looked the way she did right now attractive? Only the sleazeballs here ever made eyes at her—a man like the one beside her now wouldn’t look twice at some tarty hostess with bad make-up and worse hair.

Just for a second, a pang went through her.

If he could only see her the way she could look.

She slammed the thought shut. The girl she had once been, with the time and the joie de vivre to make the most of the looks she had been born with, to find fun in flirtation and dating, didn’t exist any more. Hadn’t done since the screech of tyres and the sickening shock of metal impacting upon metal had destroyed everything she had so blithely taken for granted till then. Now life had reduced itself to the hard, cruel essentials, to the unrelenting grind to try, so desperately, to achieve the one goal to which she had now dedicated her life.

As for her looks—well, they had got her this job, and she could be glad of that at least. And she could be glad, she knew, that the cheap, tacky, tarty look she had to adopt here was actually a protection for her. Any man who leered or letched over her looking the way she did now would be the very last to appeal to her. Her hostess image was almost like armour against the sleaziness of her job.

A job she had to do, like it or not. So there was no point wishing she could just walk out of the door and never come back. Steeling her spine, she deliberately let her gaze go to the blackjack table, watching the play.

Fast as the cards moved, she could see that the man at her side was not playing the odds, and was therefore losing repeatedly. She frowned inwardly. The guy did not look like a loser. Just the opposite.

She gave a mental shrug. So what if the guy dropped money as if it was litter? What did she care? Her only job was to get him to buy as much champagne as she could and stay the distance until her shift was over, then she could finally get home. And sleep.

‘I’m sure some champagne would turn your luck,’ she ventured purringly, forcing her voice into a kind of caressing simper. Even as she spoke she felt revulsion shimmer through her. God, this was a sordid job all right. Crass and tacky and vulgar.

Well, tough—the familiar litany bit through her: she needed money and she just couldn’t be too fussy about how she got it, so she must just get on with it and do it.

She stretched her mouth in its usual fake smile, and tilted her head invitingly. From the corner of her eye she saw Jerry, one of the waiters who circulated endlessly with trays of ready-filled champagne glasses.

The man at Lissa’s side straightened slightly, and turned to look at her. For just a second she felt she was being bored right through by a laser beam, and then, just as abruptly, it was gone. Now there was only a veiled look in the dark, long-lashed eyes that she could not look into.

He gave the slightest shrug.

‘Why not?’ he responded, and, glancing past her, beckoned Jerry with a single flick of his index finger, relieving him of two foaming glasses and handing one to Lissa. Carefully she took it, ensuring she did not touch the man’s fingers. Even so she felt her stomach tighten yet again.

‘So, do you think I should try the roulette table?’

His Gallic-accented voice quivered down her spine, upsetting all the toughly held defences she needed in a place like this. Oh, hell—why, oh, why, was this happening? It was just all wrong—all out of place. A man like this, and her in a place like this, looking the way she did, acting out this distasteful farce. She took a gulp of champagne as if it would help her steel her nerves. Forcing herself, she made herself smile at him.

Don’t look at his eyes. Look at him, but don’t see him. Look through him. Pretend he’s just one of the regular punters. Pretend it’s all just normal, perfectly normal.

She could feel her jaw aching with the tension in it as she held her bright, false smile, her gaze, by supreme force of effort, not quite meeting his.

‘Oh, good idea!’ she exclaimed vacuously. ‘I’m sure you’ll win at roulette.’ She lifted her glass. ‘Here’s to Lady Luck,’ she toasted brightly, and took another gulp of champagne. She drank as little as she could while she was working, but right now she felt she needed all the help she could find to get through this excruciating ordeal.

As she lowered her glass it registered that he hadn’t actually drunk anything at all. Given the quality of the champagne, she was hardly surprised—but then why buy it? For the dozenth time she gave a deliberate mental shrug. Nothing, nothing about this man who for some bizarre and inexplicable reason was in this casino, and for some even more bizarre, even more inexplicable reason was keeping her by his side, was of the slightest concern to her. He was a punter—her sole task was to get him to spend money, and that was all.

Carefully, she slid off the high chair, trying not to wince as her tired, sore feet hit the floor.

Roulette proved just as much of an ordeal as blackjack had. Yet again she had to sit beside him, too close, and watch him reach forward, to place his chips on the squares. This time, because roulette was more random—though the odds were always, as ever, stacked in favour of the house—he did win from time to time. But he played carelessly, as if it didn’t bother him in the slightest whether he won or lost. Opposite, Lissa could see Tanya making eyes at him—to no avail.

Finally, when the last of his chips were gone, and with a slight shake of his head he’d countered the croupier’s offer of more, he turned to Lissa.

‘Tant pis.’ He gave a shrug to dismiss his losses.

She made herself smile.

‘Bad luck,’ she said. It was inane, but expected.

An eyebrow rose. ‘Do you think so? I think we make our own luck in life, n’est ce pas?’

Something shadowed in Lissa’s eyes. Did you make your own luck in life? Or was it external, arbitrary—cruel? Did luck turn in the blink of an eye, transforming happiness to tragedy in the space of a few moments?

The swerve of wheels, the speed of a car, minute seconds of inattention. And instant, devastating tragedy—destroying in moments the happiness of everyone. Destroying more than happiness … so much more.

Her eyes hardened.

Xavier saw the change in her expression—the hardness in it suddenly. It stirred an answering hardness in him. Lissa Stephens, like the Russian girl, or any of the others here, would be a woman who made her own luck—and it would be at the expense of men.

But not—his expression darkened—at the expense of his vulnerable, good-hearted brother.

His eyes flickered briefly over the girl’s face. All his forebodings were proving true—the very thought of Armand entrapped by this excuse for a woman in any way whatsoever was abhorrent. As his own revulsion at the vulgar, tarty image the girl presented impacted in his mind, so, too, did the conviction that his brother could not possibly know what this ‘woman of his dreams’ did for a living.

Well … Xavier’s eyes hardened again momentarily. This was exactly why he’d interrupted his own business schedule—why he’d despatched Armand to visit XeL’s key retailers in Dubai, with instructions to fly straight on to New York from the Emirates to do likewise there. So that he would have the opportunity to make a dispassionate, deliberate investigation into what Lissa Stephens was.

And, whilst he was grimly convinced that he now had all the evidence he needed to condemn the girl as fulfilling the worst of his fears, he would, nevertheless, move on to the next stage as he had planned. He shot back his cuff and glanced at his watch.

‘Hélas, I must go. I have an early morning meeting tomorrow. Bon soir, mademoiselle—and thank you for your company.’

He bestowed a smile on her, somewhere between perfunctory and courteous, and moved off. Lissa watched him go. Wearily, she brushed her forehead. A tight band was pressing around it. Tiredness swept over her in a wave—tiredness and depression.

What was the point of her responding to a man like that? None at all. Even if she hadn’t been working in a place like this, looking like a cheap tart, she still would have had no business registering anything about him. Her life had no room, no time, for anything other than what filled it now.

Guilt shafted through her. Oh, God, how could she dare complain about her lot when she had nothing worth complaining about? Nothing whatsoever compared with—

She shut her mind off. The incredibly disturbing Frenchman had achieved one good thing. He had mopped up the rest of her time here, and now she could go home at last.

A bare ten minutes later, back in normal clothes again, hair vigorously brushed free of backcombing and lacquer, face stripped of its caking make-up, she plunged out into the London night.

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS chill and raw and spattering with rain, but she didn’t care. After the smoke and cheap perfume and the smell of alcohol in the casino, the dirty London air smelt fresh and clean in comparison. She took a lungful, lifting her face into the drizzle, hands plunging deep into her padded jacket pockets. She was wearing jeans and a comfortable jumper, and flat heeled ankle boots good for walking briskly. Her long hair, in need of a wash after all the lacquer, was brushed off her face into a high ponytail that dipped down her back as she lifted her face. Like one released from prison, she strode off along the narrow alleyway the back of the casino opened onto and made for the more brightly lit street beyond, where her bus stop was.

She walked swiftly—not just because looking sure and purposeful was one of her safety precautions at this time of night in this part of London, but also because she was cutting it fine to catch the night bus she needed to take her south of the river at this early hour of the morning. If she missed the bus it would be well over half an hour until the next one.

As she headed briskly towards the bus stop, a hundred metres away on the other side of the road, the rain intensified. The few cars heading along the road threw up water as they passed, but just as she paused at the kerbside to dart across the road to the stop, impatient to cross because she could see her bus approaching, a large car came right past her, too close to the kerb. Its rear wheels caught a puddle that had formed and water sprayed up at her, soaking into her jeans. She gave a start of annoyance, jumping back instinctively. But what annoyed her even more was that the car, a sleek, black expensive-looking saloon, had promptly stopped dead. It was blocking her path across the road, and she could only, with a mutter of exasperation, dodge around the back of the car, wait for another car to swoosh past, and then hurry across the road. The bus was almost at her stop. She wasn’t going to get to the far side in time to flag it down, and unless someone happened to be using that stop—which they never did—it would just sail by.

Which was exactly what it did, just as Lissa had reached the traffic island in the middle of the roadway.

Damn, damn, damn.

She stared, tight-mouthed, after the departing bus. Her shoulders sagged in depression. Over thirty minutes to wait in the cold and wet—and she wouldn’t get home for well over an hour now. And she was so tired.

‘Mademoiselle?’

Her head swivelled as she turned abruptly. The door of the car that had sprayed her and then blocked her crossing was open, and someone was half leaning out from the rear seat.

It was the Frenchman from the casino.

Even as her stomach gave an automatic, treacherous flip, the rest of her body stiffened.

The car door opened more widely, making a passing car swerve slightly. The Frenchman was getting out, crossing over to her as she stood, marooned, on the traffic island. He was wearing a black cashmere overcoat, superbly tailored, making him look even more of a knockout, and Lissa’s stomach gave another flip at the image he made.

‘It is … Lissa … is it not? I almost did not recognise you.’

Dark eyes flicked over her, registering the completely different appearance she now had. There was surprise in them. Open surprise. And something more. Something that had not been in them before.

‘I hope you will forgive me—were you trying to catch the bus that has just gone?’

‘Yes,’ answered Lissa tersely. Annoyance and exasperation were still uppermost in her emotions. But another emotion was welling up in her—an emotion she didn’t want and pushed back down hard. It had to do with the expression in the cashmere-coated Frenchman’s eyes.

‘Je suis désolé. First my car splashes you—now I have caused you to miss your bus. I hope, therefore, that you will permit me to offer you a lift instead?’

His voice was smooth. Far too smooth beneath the regret he professed to be feeling at what he had done to her.

Her eyes flashed.

‘Thank you, no. There will be another bus shortly. Excuse me.’ She turned her back and strode across the remainder of the road to the bus stop. The rain had got heavier, and the bus stop had no shelter. She hunched her shoulders and tried not to shiver. The wet material of her jeans felt cold on her shins. She did not look at the Frenchman.

At the traffic island, Xavier looked after her for a moment. Her reaction had surprised him. But right now surprise was too mild a word for what he was experiencing. Shock would be more appropriate.

And understanding. Belated, but like a punch through his system.

At last it made sense why Armand was bewitched by this girl.

Stripped of the casino hostess outfit and the gross make-up and hairdo, the girl was quite simply a knockout, even making no attempt whatsoever to look good. He could see at a glance what the layers of overdone, tarty make-up had so successfully concealed. She had a beauty to catch and hold every male eye.

Emotions twisted inside him. Contradictory, powerful—unwelcome.

He pushed the emotions aside. They were unnecessary, and getting in his way. He must not pay them attention—all his focus now must be on the next stage of his agenda for dealing with Armand’s bombshell. The incident just now had been carefully timed and executed, with one of his security men reporting exactly when Lissa Stephens had left the casino, to allow his driver the precise amount of time to make the manoeuvre he just had.

He crossed back to the car and climbed in.

‘Circle to the bus stop,’ he instructed.

He folded himself into the deep interior, bracing himself slightly as the car moved forward in a tight turn to draw up again on the other side of the street. Once more he opened the door, this time to the pavement. To his satisfaction, the rain was now falling steadily in heavy rods. She would be soaking wet in minutes if she didn’t get in the car.

He leaned forward, holding the car door open invitingly.

‘Please accept my offer of a lift, mademoiselle—this is not the weather to do otherwise.’ He made it sound as though she were being childish in her refusal.

A stony glare was cast in his direction for his pains.

‘I’m afraid I don’t get into cars with complete strangers,’ Lissa answered shortly.

Wordlessly, Xavier slid his hand into his inside jacket pocket and extracted a business card. It was a calculated gamble. Armand had told him he had said nothing to his intended bride of his connection with XeL. Now would be the moment when he would find out whether that was indeed true—and whether the ambitious Mademoiselle Stephens had been doing any checking of her own into just how rich a fish she had caught. Would the card, with its simple ‘Xavier Lauran—XeL’, without any title or position added, register with her?

Covertly, he studied her reaction as, reluctantly, she took the card and studied it in the orange glare of the streetlight.

All her face revealed was a slight frown.

‘XeL—is that the posh luggage company?’ she asked, as she lifted her eyes from the card.

Xavier felt a flare of annoyance at the casual description.

‘Among other items,’ he replied, in the same dry voice. ‘Mademoiselle, I do not wish to appear impatient, but do you intend to accept my offer of a lift or not?’

For a moment, he could tell—and the knowledge sent another flare of annoyance through him—she hung in the balance. Then, abruptly, she spoke.

‘Oh, all right, then. I might as well.’ It was hardly a gracious acceptance, and once again Xavier felt a flare of annoyance go through him. She started forward, and Xavier moved to the other side of the back seat. She settled herself into the vacated space and yanked at the seat belt, turning to him as the car started to pull out into the road.

‘If it’s not too much out of your way, could you let me out at Trafalgar Square? There are more night buses from there.’ She spoke sharply still—the result of frustration at having missed her bus, annoyance with herself for succumbing to the temptation of the lift, and of a reason she had absolutely no intention of acknowledging. Not sitting this close to him. Her sharpness was a defence she needed right now.

Xavier lifted an eyebrow. ‘You do not wish to be driven home all the way?’

‘I live south of the river,’ she answered, in the same short tone. ‘It’s miles out of your way.’

‘C’est ne fait rien.’ He spoke with indifference. ‘It is of no consequence.’

She looked at him. Her expression was acidly sceptical. ‘You said in the casino you had an early meeting—you will hardly want to go careering across London at this hour of the night.’

Xavier cast her a caustic look again. ‘I said that merely because I wanted to leave—and I did not want any persuasions to change my mind.’

Was there a flash in her eye? He could not tell in the dim light. What he could tell, though—and he was still coming to terms with the knowledge—was that she had a bone structure that was still impacting on him. And that he did not need, for reasons that he did not want to think about at this moment, when his sole focus must be on the task in hand.

But even though he was trying to suppress it, to his intense annoyance he realised that a seismic shift was taking place inside his head. Some mental fault line was realigning—realigning in a way that made him want to do nothing more right now except study in detail the extraordinary metamorphosis performed on the woman in front of him. How could he possibly have known how different she would look without the gross make-up and the hostess outfit? The question was rhetorical, and he knew it—but knowing it made no difference. He still felt as if he’d been hit on the head with a blunt object.

Urgently he fought back—fought back not just against the seismic shockwave that had crunched through him, but against what it brought in its wake. He knew the name of what that was, but he would not, could not acknowledge what it was. Could not admit it even to himself.

It doesn’t matter. This transformation alters nothing. All it does was explain how she’s managed to fool Armand. He’d obviously only seen the image she was currently presenting—not the image of the evening.

Because, he reasoned harshly, slamming down that iron control even more tightly over his reactions, it was the putain version of Lissa Stephens that was the one he had to remember—the one that was endangering his brother, the one that made her completely unsuitable to marry him. So what if she suddenly, out of nowhere, had turned everything he’d taken her for on its head? It changed nothing.

But even as he forced the words into his mind he knew them for a lie. Knew that the shock to his system was still ricocheting through him even as he fought to catch and control it.

‘If your driver goes down Piccadilly, he can cut through to Trafalgar Square.’

The girl’s voice cut through Xavier’s thoughts.

‘It is no problem to drive you to your home,’ he answered.

Again, as he spoke, Lissa’s back went up almost automatically. ‘Nevertheless,’ she said stonily, ‘I would prefer to be let out in Trafalgar Square.’

She eyed him suspiciously. She was already regretting her impulsive action in climbing into the car. OK, so he’d shown her a business card—but so what? Xavier Lauran of XeL might be some fancy French businessman, in a league that was light years from the kind of businessmen that frequented the casino, but he was still just another punter for all that. No way was she prepared to let him drive her home. It wasn’t even a public taxi—God knew what he and his driver might have planned for her. Unease prickled over her skin.

For a moment, in the uncertain light of the streets, she thought she saw a momentary expression in the man’s eyes. Then it was gone.

He gave a slight shrug. It seemed a very Gallic gesture.

‘Comme tu veux—’

‘Yes, I do wish—thank you.’ Again, her voice was clipped.

For a moment the dark eyes rested on her. Their expression was unreadable.

He was too close. Too close in this car—too …

Intimate. That was the word. In the confines of the car he seemed far closer than he had in the casino. That was because in the casino, even though she might be crushed up next to a punter at a table, or perched beside him at the gaming table, or even dancing with him, the place was so public. The ambience was so off-putting that she never felt any real physical proximity.

But this.

Automatically she coiled back into her corner of the seat. It made no difference. He was still far, far too close.

And he was looking at her.

Worse than looking. He was seeing her. Seeing her as she really was. The real person, not the facsimile of a cheap hostess she had to be at the casino.